


Samson

by sistercacao



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Preventers (Gundam Wing)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-21
Updated: 2007-10-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13425564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistercacao/pseuds/sistercacao
Summary: The strongest of us have weaknesses that others don't see.





	Samson

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the rather cliche 'Duo talks about his hair' fic.

I put the neatly-lettered paper, headed by the official Preventers insignia, down on Duo’s desk, and watched as the color drained from his face and his smile instantly faltered. With wide eyes he skimmed the words, but I got the impression he wasn’t really reading them. When he finished, he turned those wide eyes to me, shocked and accusatory.

“As you can see, this is a direct order from Une’s desk,” I stated, steeling my resolve. I had played out every angle of attack in my mind beforehand, and had decided that appealing to authority beyond that of just myself would prove the most effective in securing Duo’s compliance. In fact, I was sure it was with the same reasoning that Une had given me an official directive, instead of simply telling me to relay the message myself. “Commanders Po, Noin, and Chang have all added their signatures.”

Duo’s eyes dropped quickly back to the paper, having apparently missed this information in his initial skim. His eyebrows shot skyward as he located the offending signature. “That double-crossing bastard! That backstabbing son-of-a–”

“The directive states that the change doesn’t have to be too drastic,” I cut in, keeping my voice level, sensing the flare in Duo’s temper. “Only about eight or so inches would be–”

“I’m not cutting my fucking hair,” Duo hissed, slamming the paper down onto his desk. He faced me, glaring, his arms crossed defiantly.

Irritation spiked immediately– he was so uncooperative!– though, this being Duo, I had expected some kind of argument. Expectation, however, didn’t make dealing with it any less annoying.

Besides, the directive had originally stated that Duo’s hair was to be worn no longer than his shoulder blades, and I was the one who had convinced Une that waist length would be sufficient. That even this was not acceptable for Duo stung like a personal insult, though Duo couldn’t possibly know that it had been my idea.

“You know,” he continued, laughing in that way he has when he doesn’t find anything funny. “I have to hand it to them, they’re real fucking sharp to think that I’d comply with this order if you were the one to bring it to me.”

It was true that, as Duo’s partner and friend, they had believed he would be more receptive to the directive if I delivered it. I wondered if they had intended for Duo to pick up on their analysis so easily, or if this was another instance of his razor-sharp perception at work.

“Duo, you have to understand that it’s a dangerous liability,” I stated, cutting to the chase. Duo’s eyes flashed immediately at the perceived insult. “Even Zechs cut his hair once he began active duty. It is simply taking too much of a risk to wear your hair long in the kind of missions we undertake.”

“I fought two wars and piloted a gundam with this hair, Yuy. I don’t remember it ever becoming a _liability._ ”

“Really?” I replied. “Because I remember having to shoot at least one Oz soldier who managed to grab you by the hair while we were supposed to be in the middle of a stealth mission.”

His eyes widened fractionally. I think he was surprised I had remembered that offhand. “Well, it sure looks like we made it out all right,” he said, no less defiant even when he was wrong.

I was beginning to get frustrated that Duo was being so unaccommodating, that he wasn’t listening to me. And I was failing to see what the problem was in the first place. “They’re not even asking for you to cut it that much,” I continued, but it only seemed to make Duo angrier.

“That’s not the point,” he snapped, picking up on my increasing irritation and raising his voice to match. “Not an inch of my hair gets cut! I don’t care if Sally, Noin, Wufei, Une, or even fucking Treize Khushrenada rose from his grave to sign the fucking paper!”

I slammed my hand on his desk and he was out of his seat in an instant, glaring at me from the other side of the table, the directive lying between us. “This is ridiculous, Duo!” I growled, irate, even as I chastised myself for losing my temper so quickly. It made me irrationally angry that Duo wouldn’t listen to me on this issue– that he wouldn’t even consider my opinion. “I’ve never known you to be this vain!”

“You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, Yuy!” He yelled, snarling in my face, “and I’m warning you to shut your goddamn mouth about this!”

“This is a direct order from your superior!”

“Then I quit!” He declared. “I don’t need this fucking job if this is the shit they want from me!” He slid around the side of the desk and went for the door, but I grabbed his arm and whirled him around to face me.

“Duo, just what the fuck is your problem? It’s just your goddamn hair!”

Duo’s punch landed square on my jaw before I even realized he’d swung. All of a sudden I was swinging too, hitting him in the temple with more force than I’d intended and he went flying back into the wall, sliding with a thump to the ground.

“Duo?” I said, my voice sounding oddly choked. I was still furious and my jaw ached from the punch, but worry flooded me when Duo slammed into the wall. I didn’t think I’d hit him hard enough to knock him out. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Duo taken out from a single punch before.

He sat, completely silent, with his knees drawn up to his chin, his arms wrapped loosely around them. I approached him warily.

“Duo?” I repeated when he didn’t respond. His head, buried beneath his arms, shook slightly. My heart tightened painfully, the pain blossoming across my chest. It was a pain I knew well, one I felt only for Duo, one I had only been able to put a definition to recently. It was the reason I got so unreasonably upset when he didn’t listen to me. It was the reason I challenged him when he didn’t want to cut his hair, to know why he was so irrationally attached to something that... that wasn’t me.

“It’s been with me longer than I can even remember,” he muttered finally, his voice muffled and soft behind his arms. I wasn’t sure if I was even meant to hear it.

“It was there before Solo died, it was there before Helen and Father Maxwell died,” he continued, and here he drew his head up from his knees. I could see his lidded eyes and hear his voice clearly, hoarse and deep, thickened by emotion I didn’t understand.

“Solo? Helen?” I repeated, having never heard the names before.

But he didn’t stop to explain. “I might be the only one around to remember any of them. Hell... there aren’t even any grave sites to visit. The only marker I’ve got is my hair, man.”

Absorbed in his words, I found myself crouched on the floor beside him, having moved there without even realizing what I was doing. His purple eyes lifted to meet mine, his gaze freezing me to the spot. They swam– not with tears, he was too strong for that, but with memories that I had never before heard shared.

“It’s just eight inches to them,” he continued, so quiet I almost had to strain to hear it, even sitting beside him like I was. “But the stuff at the bottom, that’s the oldest. It’s the stuff I don’t even remember. Maybe when I grew that hair... I still had parents. Maybe I still had people who loved me.”

“Duo–” I began, but I stopped myself short, afraid of what I would say. _‘Duo, I love you_ ’? I couldn’t say it now, not when he was barely here with me in the office, lost in memory as he was.

He looked away from me then, toward the wall. A muscle twitched in his jaw. I realized how much effort he was putting into controlling his emotions.

“I didn’t have any control over it,” he muttered, “over any of it. They all died and I couldn’t save them. And it... it seems like nothing, but... at least I had control over my hair, you know? I could keep that, and it would always be mine, as long as I lived. Maybe one day I’ll... I’ll be able to let go of it, but not now. Not yet.”

“Duo...” The need to comfort him overwhelmed me, and quite honestly scared the hell out of me. How could I feel so strongly for another person that this pain of his, which I couldn’t possibly understand, gripped me as fiercely as if it were my own? How do people write songs and poems about this? It’s disarming and irrational and absolutely frightening.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said to the wall, “I can’t cut my hair. I don’t care how stupid you think it is or how vain you think I am, I can’t...”

“Fucking hell, Duo,” I muttered, and now I really did reach out for him, wrapping my arms around his hunched shoulders, consequences be damned. For a moment he was still, no doubt shocked at my actions, though I was certainly even more shocked than he was. Then, all of a sudden, he uncoiled like a spring, wrapping his arms around my waist and leaning into me unexpectedly hard, sending me toppling backward on my ass with a thump. His head ended up buried somewhere in my chest, and I squeezed him tight enough to bruise and tried to steady the wild beating of my heart.

“Don’t do it, Heero, please,” he whispered against my jacket, his fingers digging into the fabric at my back. “If you cut my hair, I’m afraid I’ll make myself hate you and I don’t think I could live with myself if I did.”

“I won’t let them do it,” I said firmly, surprising myself with just how serious I was. I’d figure out some way to convince them without betraying Duo’s trust. I understood now why it took being cornered for Duo to reveal why he didn’t cut his hair.

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” I continued. My eyes fell to the long, thick braid that was spilling down his back and into my lap. “I just didn’t understand.”

I held him against me for a minute, longer than I should have allowed myself to, but I just didn’t care. Eventually I felt, in the ease of tension in his shoulders and the loosening of his arms around my waist, the anger drained slowly out of him.

Finally, he pulled away, making an effort to smooth out the wrinkles he’d put in my jacket. “Sorry, man,” he said sheepishly, like he was embarrassed to have divulged so much to me, or maybe at having allowed me to hold him for so long.

My hands reached out toward him of their own accord, loathe to release him. I swear I had only intended to hug him again, maybe say something lighthearted and trivial to lift the heavy mood a little, but my frayed emotions betrayed me. Reaching for his shoulder, my hand curled instead around the back of his head and pulled him gently toward me. From there, it was the easiest thing in the world to tilt my head and meet his lips halfway with mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said immediately after I pulled away, and I found myself unable to meet his gaze. “This isn’t the right time.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he replied, and strong hands cupped my chin and tilted my head up to meet his gaze. He was smiling, not one of his usual grins, but a soft, honest one, the kind I so rarely got to see. “But I guess it’ll have to do.”

I wanted to reply, maybe suggest that there were more appropriate times and more appropriate places than the floor of Duo’s office, but then Duo was kissing me and I lost track of anything I’d intended to say. It couldn’t have been very important, anyway. Certainly not as important as the feel of Duo’s soft lips, and the way they fit so perfectly against mine.

It was strange how one afternoon could make it clear just how little I knew about Duo, though I had managed to fall desperately for him anyway. I had thought Duo’s hair was just one of his many quirks, a remnant from days long past when he still dressed like a priest and called himself Death, but, like everything about Duo, it was never so simple. Alone his whole life, Duo’s hair became his source of strength, his witness to suffering and death. I hope the day will come when he doesn’t need the reminder any more. And, as frightening and irrational an emotion as it is, I hope that one day I will come to fill that position for him, to be his strength when he needs it. After all, he has long since become mine.


End file.
